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I've rarely seen progress get made when it's framed as "I want to clean up tech debt." To execs it seems like moving deckchairs rather than moving the number (w

I've rarely seen progress get made when it's framed as "I want to clean up tech debt." To execs it seems like moving deckchairs rather than moving the number (which to be fair, it sometimes is). "In order to release feature x which customer y cares about, we need to clear up tech debt / refactor z" is a much better way of getting execs on board.

aYsY4dDQ2NrcNzA 6y ago
Excellent point, it needs to offer a concrete benefit. Simply saying “it will make it easier to write new features going forward” won’t convince anyone.
wpietri 6y ago
For sure. That's definitely where many organizations are. "To cook breakfast this morning, I propose we clean up last night's dinner mess. Here is my 27-slide deck." But I think it's also worth orgs getting to the point of defaulting to just cleaning up after dinner, and also cleaning as they cook. Having to have a specific, urgent reason to clean up a mess is a fine argument for 13-year-olds to make as they come to understand how a household works. But it's tiresome when nominal adults refuse to accept that the future eventually arrives.